


in his veins

by unhappy_matt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood Drinking, Controlling Dean Winchester, Dubious Consent, Episode: s05e14 My Bloody Valentine, Established Relationship, Guilt, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Dean Winchester, Power Dynamics, Sam Winchester Detoxing From Demon Blood, Sam Winchester Whump, Self-righteous Dean, Shame, Vulnerable Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29881434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappy_matt/pseuds/unhappy_matt
Summary: In the aftermath of their encounter with Famine, Sam finds himself once again locked down inside the panic room to detox.Dean is convinced he's doing the right thing, but he can't bring himself to leave his brother.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	in his veins

**Author's Note:**

> So, I found Dean's attitude toward Sam's addiction, as well as his treatment of Sam, to be pretty uncharitable through seasons 4 and 5, even though it's understandable in context.  
> The following step of this thought process, of course, was that I went "Hm! HOT!", and I decided to explore a little of what might be going on inside Dean's head. 
> 
> Dean is a bit of a dick here, which I say very lovingly and with the full intent of having fun writing their mess of a relationship. <3 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day, Sam...?

He should leave. He knows how this goes; they’ve been through this song and dance before, he and Sam.

Dean turns away from the reinforced door. He lingers, paces, turns around again.

He steadies himself with slow breaths, forehead pressed to the door. There’s silence on the other side—for now. He should go before the screaming starts again. It’s gonna get bad, and he’s doing what needs to be done, but he doesn’t want to be there for that part.

Sam’s done this to himself—a second time. It was his decision. He knew what was gonna happen.

Sam has a problem, except that there are no twelve steps programs or self-help circles for his particular choice of poison, are there?

Dean punches the wall, grinding his teeth. Fuck. Fuck it.

He enters the panic room.

Sam is still _there_ , of course, right where Dean left him. Relief rolls through Dean at the sight, entangled with a bizarre nausea that squeezes his stomach like a fist. A small voice at the back of his head that had whispered, traitorously, creeping through his thoughts, even though it makes no sense—Dean had nearly hoped to find Sam gone. That he’d open the door, to find that his brother had found a way to break out.

He hates this, doing this to Sam. Guilt like vomit burns inside his throat, because he’s _trying_ —he’s just trying to keep Sam _safe_ , God, and yet here they are once again.

Sam is on his back. Legs spread out, his ankles tied with ropes. His wrists are cuffed, the handcuffs linked to the bars of the headboard.

He lifts his head when Dean shuts the door, twisting his upper body to push himself up.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is thin.

Dean swallows. “Hi, Sammy.”

He steps closer and he’s welcomed by the tang of sweat that grips his throat tightly.

Sam lets his head drop back. His hair is splayed on the pillow, a messy crown. He seems to shrink away, curling in on himself as much as he can with the limited movement range allowed by his restraints. Making himself smaller, _holding back_. Withdrawal was already kicking in when Dean and Bobby had to drag him down there cuffed and half-delirious, and Sam growled and kicked and thrashed every step of the way, even though he had agreed, after they came back from their little faceoff with Famine, that this was the right course of action.

Dean keeps his distance, standing there, a few steps away. He doesn’t know what to do with his own body.

It’s undignified, to have Sam strapped down like this, like he’s some rabid dog. But that’s what demon blood turns him into. And Dean can’t forgive Sam for this, deep down, not fully.

A flicker of eyelashes; Sam’s pink, soft mouth twitches in a grimace. He drags his eyes up to Dean’s face. “What’re doin’ here?” The words are strained, slurred.

Dean wants to smile, he wants to be reassuring. He can’t. “Just wanted to check on you.”

Sam shifts on the mattress, his long legs sprawled out and lax. His heels dig into the mattress, searching for grip, slipping. Slender calves peeking out of his jeans—something about that simple sight is so violently delicate.

Sam’s hair is ruffled, clinging to his cheeks. There’s a glistening sheen of sweat on his skin, dark stains under his armpits.

“Dean,” Sam whispers. “Please. Let me out. I don’t want to—” He shivers. “Don’t leave me here.”

It’s throaty and low. It’s _thirst_ , Dean’s mind supplies cruelly.

Dean shakes his head. “You know I can’t do that, Sam.” He breathes deeply, a long exhale. “You know what you said. You agreed.”

He doesn’t know why he came here, if all he’s doing is just repeating the words they’ve already gone through, while Sam’s state of mind is clouded enough that he’s barely even listening. But Dean can’t bring himself to leave, either.

He sits down, at the edge of the thin mattress that dips under their combined weight. His fingers are near Sam’s legs. He rests his palm on top of Sam’s denim-clad ankle and squeezes lightly. The rough fabric must be uncomfortable, chafing and scraping against Sam’s skin.

Something twists uneasily in Dean’s belly, a heat he doesn’t care to analyze. He tries to squash it down, but the same heat creeps up his neck, flushes his cheeks, and Dean’s cock twitches against the inside of his thigh.

Sam looks softer, like this. Vulnerable in a way that he rarely shows around Dean anymore.

In here Sam can’t escape. He can’t run off on his own and leave Dean behind, and put himself in danger where Dean can’t reach him.

Sam _needs_ him, and Dean’s gonna help him, whatever it takes.

Dean bites his tongue, bringing himself closer. Sam is shaking, struggling, pulling at the handcuffs; more weakly, now.

Dean lifts his hand, brings it up to Sam’s cheek. “Stop that,” he says through his teeth. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.” He touches Sam’s hair, fine under his fingers, even when it’s sticky and matted.

Sam pulls away, fighting Dean’s touch, straining against his restraints even though there’s nowhere for him to go. “You feel so real,” he mumbles.

Dean’s throat is desert-dry. “I’m real, Sammy.” He runs his knuckles up and down along the sharp line of Sam’s cheekbone, in a slow caress. “I’m here with you.”

Sam blinks and his eyes are shiny with unshed tears. “It’s starting again. I don’t wanna see ‘em, Dean.” His teeth rattle like dead leaves in the wind. “Dean. Please. You have to let me out of here.”

Dean breathes out. He wants to be stern. Angry. He wants to hate Sam for doing this to himself—to _him_. Instead, his voice comes out soft, and broken, and his fingers splayed on Sam’s cheek are light and careful. Sam’s burning up, feverish. Heat radiates off of his body and it makes Dean’s skin tingle where his fingertips are touching him. He should’ve brought something like a wet rag or ice, he didn’t think of it.

“I can’t.” The words almost won’t form on Dean’s tongue. “’s for your own good, Sammy.”

Sam doesn’t relax into Dean’s touch, not at all. His body contracts into a taut line, then sags, but it doesn’t look or feel like relief. It’s like a sigh punching the air out of him, and Sam’s head drops back against the thin pillow, his arms unclenching.

“You can’t do this to me,” Sam sobs, voice breaking, and Dean’s heart shatters a little more.

Dean leans down, lips brushing Sam’s hairline, nearly a kiss but not quite. “You can get through this, Sammy,” he murmurs. Almost begging. He needs to believe it. “I’ve got you.” He kisses Sam’s temple and it feels dangerous to do this now, dangerous for the both of them, in ways he can’t articulate.

Sam twists his shoulders, pushing himself up to bring their faces closer. He tips his forehead up against Dean’s, seems to breathe him in. He’s trembling so hard Dean can feel it thrumming under his own skin.

“Stay with me,” Sam pleads, breathless.

Dean _should_ leave. He never should have come here in the first place. He leans down, fingers combing through the strands plastered to Sam’s forehead.

“Okay,” he whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He cradles the back of Sam’s head—muscle memory echoing through time, the oldest, most visceral gesture Dean knows—and searches for Sam’s gaze.

“Look at me, Sammy,” he murmurs. “Nothing in here’s gonna hurt you. It’s not real, I promise. It’s just you and me.”

Sam gasps, a quiet, desperate sigh that washes through them both.

When Sam’s lips crash against his, it’s not entirely a surprise, and Dean’s breath catches, but he doesn’t pull away.

Sam can’t grab him, but he kisses Dean with full force, pressing up against him like he’s clinging to him to survive. He suckles on Dean’s mouth, teeth nipping and pulling on Dean’s lips, the tip of his tongue nudging to pry Dean’s mouth open. A pained, strangled noise vibrates deep in Sam’s throat.

Dean closes his eyes. Shame-guilt churns in his gut like the twist of a knife. It’s wrong to do it like this, with Sam in this state. He knows, and he lets Sam kiss him all the same.

Sam _wants it_ , hungry for it, straining to kiss Dean like he’s gonna die. But Sam wants demon blood with that same hunger, and what Sam _wants_ can’t be trusted.

Dean kisses him back lightly, careful, cupping Sam’s face. They haven’t done much of—this, in what feels like a very long time. Things between them are tangled, all jagged edges and frayed silences, this uneasy truce that can’t hide their mutual mistrust. Cracks that can’t be mended to make everything the way it was before. _Before_ , when? Before Ruby? Before Dean’s deal? Before Stanford?

They still gravitate toward one another, in that way that has always felt unavoidable since Sam joined him back on the road years ago. Slamming each other against a wall when they fight. The things they say to each other made uglier by the fact that they both mean them.

It’s hands and limbs and lips when they find each other under motel sheets, in the darkness, through scent and few words, when they bridge the gaps between them in the one way that works. At least for a while.

This is different. Sam groans into his mouth and his kisses grows more insistent, tongue searching for Dean’s, the bed creaking under Sam’s attempts to get—more, _more_.

And touching Sam would be easy. It would take so little to slide his hand between Sam’s spread-out legs, palm the front of his jeans, slip his fingers inside Sam’s underwear to close them around the velvety burning heat of Sam’s skin.

And that’s why Dean knows he shouldn’t. Must not. With Sam under him, like this—there’s a vicious surge of adrenaline and want, darting down Dean’s spine and making his cock painfully hard.

Sam would take anything Dean gives him—not like he’d have a choice. He would arch his back so pretty to fuck into Dean’s fist, keening and crumbling, and Dean could let him ride through his withdrawal like that.

He hates this. All of it. Sam’s addiction, and having Sam trapped and pliant under him—under his _control_. A power that feels horrible to have.

It’s like taking advantage. He hates that he likes it, hates this hot-painful arousal that he wouldn’t admit to under torture. How Sam makes him ache to touch and take, and he won’t, but God, he _could_.

Dean’s free palm slides down Sam’s leg, settling around the meat of his thigh. Dean’s fingertips squeeze, he can’t help it, and his pulse races wildly when Sam _growls_.

There’s a white-hot pang of sharp pain, and Dean jolts as Sam’s teeth snap, like a trap, and he bites hard into Dean’s lower lip.

Dean hisses, groans, a curse dying in his throat. He pulls back, reflexively, air returning sharply to his lungs. Still breathing so close to Sam that they could be one body. Dean’s mouth is wet with spit and with the faint metallic taste of blood.

He flinches again when Sam’s tongue laps at his lips, a slow drag of skin on skin—Sam licks the blood off of Dean’s mouth.

The little whimper Sam makes is an electric shock. Sam does it again and again, tongue tip greedy and demanding, until Dean grips his shoulders and tears him away.

Sam licks his own bottom lip, then, eye lashes shadowing his cheeks. Dean’s lips feel tender, pulsing with dull pain.

“Fuck, Sammy,” he whispers, slowly. He wants to be disgusted but he’s mesmerized. He thumbs the arc of Sam’s upper lip, caresses Sam’s jaw absently. “What am I gonna do with you?”

Sam looks up, heavy eyelids and pink lips, cheeks red like he’s been slapped. His features more distended, now, his breaths slower.

“Dean?” Sam’s gaze is unfocused, lost somewhere beyond Dean’s shoulder, for a moment. Then he shakes his head, looking up at Dean. “Kiss me again?”

It’s so quiet Dean could almost miss it, except that he knows Sammy’s voice better than he knows his own, attuned to every word, every sound his brother makes.

Dean presses kisses to Sam’s forehead. “Yeah,” he surrenders. His own voice is foreign to his ears, hoarse and uncertain. “Yeah, of course.”

He adjusts the angle slightly, slotting his mouth against Sam’s. Sam licks at the seam of Dean’s lips with a pleased sigh, then there’s the lightning-quick sting of teeth, and flames lick up Dean’s spine, and Sam bites him again. Blood spills down the middle of Dean’s lip, he feels it in earnest this time, then the wet-hot of Sam’s tongue, not quite a kiss anymore, drinking from him, _feeding on_ him.

It’s not the substance Sam is truly craving. It’s a surrogate, it feels like mockery. But _this_ , at least, this much he can give Sam.

Dean’s _blood_. The blood that they share. _Family_ , and _love_ , the bond that runs deepest—everything that they are—each other’s weak spot.

He can give Sam his blood to drink, and Sam will remain safe here, he won’t need to go looking around for—for anything— _anyone_ else. 

There’s an instant of space between their mouths. Dean rubs his index over his own mouth, finds it smeared with red when he looks at it.

He runs his hand through Sam’s hair, watches the slow rising and falling of his chest, the hypnotic, unaware rocking of Sam’s hips. Sam’s nipples hard through his shirt. Dean wants his mouth on them, he wants to make Sam scream.

Not in here. He won’t.

He slides his finger between Sam’s soft lips, thumbing at his slack jaw. Sam makes a tiny little noise, and his eyes are on Dean while he sucks Dean’s bloodied index into his mouth.

Dean rests the other hand on Sam’s hip, where his shirt has bunched up to leave a strip of skin, bared for Dean to graze. “Want more, Sammy?”

Sam nods, eyes clenching shut. Teeth catch on the skin of Dean’s finger when Sam releases him, slow and sloppy.

If he had known—he doesn’t have any of his knives on him. That’s okay. Sam can bite his neck—bite his tongue—anywhere he needs.

Dean can let him have this. Dean will give him more. If this is what Sam needs, if this can help him make it to the other side.

They’ll do this together.

Dean dives down, offering himself to Sam’s mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit of an experiment in finding out how sexual I could be without showing any sex. I still don't think I can beat the show, though.


End file.
